Help Inspire the Next Generation of Scientists

Your support of physics today will motivate the scientists of tomorrow

As the leading voice for the physics community, APS members share in the responsibility to prepare the next generation of physicists. The sooner we can excite young students’ sense of wonder about the world with examples from physics, the better. With your help, we at APS can continue to make a difference—in part, through the free distribution of PhysicsQuest kits to middle schools.

This past year, 22,000 PhysicsQuest kits—which have been acclaimed around the world, most recently by educators as far away as Pakistan—were requested in less than one week. Given our limited budget, we could only fulfill 16,500 requests. Nonetheless, we are grateful to have touched the lives of 400,000 middle school students with the goal of sparking their interest in the study of physics. But, much more work remains to be done, and for that—we need your support.

Gifts of any amount are greatly appreciated, but contributions of $250 or more could have a measurable impact on our outreach efforts—enabling us to produce and distribute additional PhysicsQuest kits.

Think what we could accomplish with $100,000-$150,000. Not only could we provide an additional 5,000-7,500 kits, but we could also affect the lives and, potentially, the careers of an additional 100,000-150,000 students!

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about this or other outreach funding opportunities, please contact our Director of Development, Irene I. Lukoff at 301-209-3224 or lukoff@aps.org.

Thank you for your consideration and for your help in turning middle-school students on to the wonders of physics.

APS has been making great strides in empowering middle school teachers to motivate students at a critical time in their development—when they are known to lose interest in math and science. APS accomplishes this through its outreach activity, PhysicsQuest. The PhysicsQuest Program:

Provides materials for lab experiments to middle school teachers that facilitate the exploration of the fundamental concepts of physics.

Engages students via a story-based activity comprised of a physics-themed comic book that features the popular superhero Spectra.

Reached between 3.5-4 million middle school science students since the Program's inception in 2005.